Plasma production and heating is a research area focused on generating ionized gases and raising their temperature and energy content to conditions required for fundamental studies and applications such as magnetic and inertial confinement fusion, space propulsion, and high-energy-density physics. It encompasses methods of plasma formation (e.g., gas breakdown, beam- or laser-induced ionization, RF discharges) and a range of heating schemes including ohmic (resistive) heating, radio-frequency and microwave heating, neutral beam injection, and wave–particle interaction techniques. Research addresses efficiency, control of energy deposition, stability, impurity management, and optimization of plasma parameters for confinement and performance.
Technology for converting solar energy into thermal energy is ever evolving and has numerous applications. A breakthrough in the laboratory of Professor My Ali El Khakani at Institut national de la recherche scientifique ...
Nanomaterials
Apr 11, 2025
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Like engineers who design high-performance Formula One race cars, scientists want to create high-performance plasmas in twisty fusion systems known as stellarators. Achieving this performance means that the plasma must retain ...
Plasma Physics
Mar 12, 2025
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Plasma arc cutting (PAC) is a thermal cutting technique widely used in manufacturing applications such as shipbuilding, aerospace, fabrication, nuclear plants decommissioning, construction industry, and the automotive industry. ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 20, 2025
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Predicting the lifetime of an electric ion thruster is notoriously difficult. You have to account for the chamber wall effects, which are not present in space environments. Researchers within several different aerospace disciplines ...
General Physics
Jan 20, 2025
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Heating plasma to the ultra-high temperatures needed for fusion reactions requires more than turning the dial on a thermostat. Scientists consider multiple methods, one of which involves injecting electromagnetic waves into ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 19, 2024
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107
A small team of astrophysicists at the University of California, Los Angeles, working with colleagues from the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Colorado, Boulder, has found evidence that Alfvén waves in ...
Heating a plasma for fusion research requires megawatts of power. One approach that research tokamaks use to achieve the necessary power input is neutral beam injection (NBI). With NBI, fast neutral particles are generated ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 25, 2024
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There is a profound mystery in our sun. While the sun's surface temperature measures around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, its outer atmosphere, known as the solar corona, measures more like 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, about ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 11, 2024
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137
Harder than a diamond, stronger than steel, as flexible as rubber and lighter than aluminum. These are just some of the properties attributed to graphene. Although this material has sparked great interest in the scientific ...
Nanophysics
Oct 10, 2024
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100
New artificial intelligence (AI) models for plasma heating can do more than was previously thought possible, not only increasing the prediction speed 10 million times while preserving accuracy, but also correctly predicting ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 9, 2024
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